Summary of chapters 20 and 21

In John 20 we have, in a summary of several of the leading facts
among those which took place after the resurrection of Jesus, a
picture of all the consequences of that great event, in immediate
connection with the grace that produced them, and with the
affections that ought to be seen in the faithful when again brought
into relationship with the Lord; and at the same time, a picture of
all God's ways up to the revelation of Christ to the remnant before
the millennium. In John 21 the millennium is pictured to us.

Jesus risen; Mary Magdalene seeking Jesus; proofs of His resurrection

Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven demons, appears
first in the scene -- a touching expression of the ways of God. She
represents, I doubt not, the Jewish remnant of that day, personally
attached to the Lord, but not knowing the power of
resurrection. She is alone in her love: the very strength of her
affection isolates her. She was not the only one saved, but she
comes alone to seek -- wrongly to seek, if you will, but to seek --
Jesus, before the testimony of His glory shines forth in a world of
darkness, because she loved Himself. She comes before the other
women, while it was yet dark. It is a loving heart (we have
already seen it in the believing women) occupied with Jesus, when
the public testimony of man is still entirely wanting. And it is to
this that Jesus first manifests Himself when He is
risen. Nevertheless her heart knew where it would find a response.
She goes away to Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved,
when she does not find the body of Christ. Peter and the other
disciple go, and find the proofs of a resurrection accomplished (as
to Jesus Himself) with all the composure that became the power of
God, great as the alarm might be that it created in the mind of
man. There had been no haste; everything was in order: and Jesus
was not there.

Mary's affection: the Good Shepherd and His sheep

The two disciples, however, are not moved by the same attachment
as that which filled her heart, who had been the object of so
mighty a deliverance* on the Lord's part. They see, and, on these
visible proofs, they believe. It was not a spiritual understanding
of the thoughts of God by means of His word; they saw and
believed. There is nothing in this which gathers the disciples
together. Jesus was away; He had risen. They had satisfied
themselves on this point, and they go away to their home. But Mary,
led by affection rather than by intelligence, is not satisfied with
coldly recognising that Jesus was again risen.** She thought Him
still dead, because she did not possess Him. His death, the fact of
her not finding Him again, added to the intensity of her affection,
because He Himself was its object. All the tokens of this affection
are produced here in the most touching manner. She supposes that
the gardener must know who was in question without her telling him,
for she only thought of one (as if I inquired of a beloved object
in a family, "How is he?"). Bending over the sepulchre, she turns
her head when He approaches; but then the Good Shepherd, risen from
the dead, calls His sheep by her name; and the known and loved
voice -- mighty according to the grace which thus called her --
instantly reveals Him to her who heard it. She turns to Him, and
replies, "Rabboni -- my Master." {*"Seven demons." This represents
the complete possession of this poor woman by the unclean spirits
to whom she was a prey. It is the expression of the real state of
the Jewish people.} {**It is impossible to me, in giving great
principles for the help of those who seek to understand the word,
to develop all that is so deeply touching and interesting in this
twentieth chapter, on which I have often pondered with (through
grace) an ever-growing interest. This revelation of the Lord to the
poor woman who could not do without her Saviour, has a touching
beauty, which every detail enhances. But there is one point of view
to which I cannot but call the reader's attention. There are four
conditions of soul presented here which, taken together, are very
instructive, and each in the case of a believer: -- st. John and
Peter, who see and believe, are really believers; but they do not
see in Christ the only centre of all the thoughts of God, for His
glory, for the world, for souls. Neither is He so for their
affections, although they are believers. Having found that He was
risen, they do without Him. Mary, who did not know this, who was
even culpably ignorant, could nevertheless not do without Jesus.
She must possess Himself. Peter and John go to their home; this is
the centre of their interests. They believe indeed, but self and
home suffice them. Thomas believes, and acknowledges with true
orthodox faith, on incontestable proofs, that Jesus is his Lord and
his God. He truly believes for himself. He has not the
communications of the efficacy of the Lord's work, and of the
relationship with His Father into which Jesus brings His own, the
assembly. He has peace perhaps, but he has missed all the
revelation of the assembly's position. How many souls-saved souls
even -- are there in these two conditions! Mary Magdalene is
ignorant in the extreme. She does not know that Christ is
risen. She has so little right sense of His being Lord and God,
that she thinks some one might have taken away His body. But
Christ is her all, the need of her soul, the only desire of her
heart. Without Him she has no home, no Lord, no anything. Now to
this need Jesus answers; it indicates the work of the Holy Ghost.
He calls His sheep by her name, shows Himself to her first of all,
teaches her that His presence was not now to be a Jewish bodily
return to earth, that He must ascend to His Father, that the
disciples were now His brethren, and that they were placed in the
same position as Himself with His God and His Father -- as Himself,
the risen Man, ascended to His God and Father. All the glory of the
new individual position is opened to her. This gathers the
disciples together. Jesus then brings them the peace which He has
made, and they have the full joy of a present Saviour who brings it
them. He makes this peace (possessed by them in virtue of His work
and His victory) their starting-point, sends them as the Father had
sent Him, and imparts to them the Holy Ghost as the breath and
power of life, that they may be able to bear that peace to
others. These are the communications of the efficacy of His work,
as He had given to Mary that of the relationship to the Father
which resulted from it. The whole is the answer to Mary's
attachment to Christ, or what resulted from it. If through grace
there is affection, the answer will assuredly be granted. It is the
truth which flows from the work of Christ. No other state than that
which Christ here presents is in accordance with what He has done,
and with the Father's love. He cannot, by His work, place us in any
other.}

The Lord's new position and relationship with the remnant

But while thus revealing Himself to the beloved remnant, whom He
had delivered, all is changed in their position and in His
relationship with them. He was not going now to dwell bodily in the
midst of His people on earth. He did not come back to re-establish
the kingdom in Israel. "Touch me not," says He to Mary. But by
redemption He had wrought a far more important thing. He had placed
them in the same position as Himself with His Father and His God;
and He calls them -- which He never had, and never could have done
before -- His brethren. Until His death the corn of wheat remained
alone. Pure and perfect, the Son of God, He could not stand in the
same relationship to God as the sinner; but, in the glorious
position which He was going to resume as man, He could, through
redemption, associate with Himself His redeemed ones, cleansed,
regenerated, and adopted in Him.

The remnant's new position with Him

He sends them word of the new position they were to have in
common with Himself. He says to Mary, "Touch me not; but go to my
brethren, and tell them that I ascend to my Father and your Father,
to my God and your God." The will of the Father -- accomplished by
means of the glorious work of the Son, who, as man, has taken His
place, apart from sin, with His God and Father -- and the work of
the Son, the source of eternal life to them, have brought the
disciples into the same position as Himself before the Father.

The risen Lord in the midst of the gathered disciples, bringing peace

The testimony borne to this truth gathers the disciples
together. They meet with closed doors, unprotected now by the care
and power of Jesus, the Messiah, Jehovah on earth. But if they had
no longer the shelter of the Messiah's presence, they have Jesus in
their midst, bringing them that which they could not have before
His death -- "Peace."

The disciples sent forth into the world for Him with peace as their starting point

But He did not bring them this blessing merely as their own
portion. Having given them proofs of His resurrection, and that in
His body He was the same Jesus, He sets them in this perfect peace
as the starting point of their mission. The Father, eternal and
infinite fountain of love, had sent the Son, who abode in it, who
was the witness of that love, and of the peace which He, the
Father, shed around Himself, where sin had no existence. Rejected
in His mission, Jesus had -- on behalf of a world where sin existed
-- made peace for all who should receive the testimony of the grace
which had made it; and He now sends His disciples from the bosom of
that peace into which He had brought them, by the remission of sins
through His death, to bear testimony to it in the world.

The Holy Spirit given for peace and power

He says again, "Peace be unto you," to send them forth into the
world clothed and filled with that peace, their feet shod with it,
even as the Father had sent Him. He gives them the Holy Ghost for
this end, that according to His power they might bear the remission
of sins to a world that was bowed down under the yoke of sin.

The distinction between the bestowal of the Holy Spirit here and at Pentecost

I do not doubt that, speaking historically, the Spirit here is
distinguished from Acts 2, inasmuch as here it is a breath of
inward life, as God breathed into the nostrils of Adam a breath of
life. It is not the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. Thus Christ,
who is a quickening Spirit, imparts spiritual life to them
according to the power of resurrection.* As to the general picture
figuratively presented in the passage, it is the Spirit bestowed on
the saints gathered by the testimony of His being risen and His
going to the Father, as the whole scene represents the assembly in
its present privileges. Thus we have the remnant attached to
Christ by love; believers individually recognised as children of
God, and in the same position before Him as Christ; and then the
assembly founded on this testimony, gathered together with Jesus in
the midst, in the enjoyment of peace; and its members, individually
constituted, in connection with the peace which Christ has made, a
witness to the world of the remission of sins -- its administration
being committed to them. {*Compare Romans 4-8 and Colossians 2 and
3. Resurrection was the power of life which brought them out of the
dominion of sin, that had its end in death, and that was condemned
in the death of Jesus, and they dead to it, but not condemned by
it, sin having been condemned in His death. This is a question,
not of guilt, but of state. Our guilt, blessed be God, was put away
too. But here we die with Christ, and resurrection presents us
(Romans, as quoted, unfolds the side of death; Colossians adds
resurrection. Romans is death to sin, Colossians to the world)
living before God in a life in which Jesus -- and we by Him --
appeared in His presence according to the perfection of divine
righteousness. But this supposed His work also.}

Thomas' absence from the first gathering

Thomas represents the Jews in the last days, who will believe
when they see. Blessed are they who have believed without
seeing. But the faith of Thomas is not concerned with the position
of sonship. He acknowledges, as the remnant will do, that Jesus is
his Lord and his God. He was not with them in their first church
gathering. The Lord here, by His actions, consecrates the first day
of the week for His meeting together with His own, in spirit here
below.

The evangelist's object in what he has related

The evangelist is far from exhausting all that there was to
relate of that which Jesus did. The object of that which he has
related is linked with the communication of eternal life in Christ;
first, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and, second, that
in believing we have life through His name. To this the Gospel is
consecrated.